During my daily commute, I’ve been listening to Linchpin by Seth Godin, and am absolutely taken by the idea that the CV/resume could be becoming an outdated concept.
As a freelance contractor, one of the key marketing tools I use to get work has traditionally been my CV, so to me the idea that its days might be numbered is both exciting and scary at the same time.
The old way
Today, those of us lucky enough to have a ‘career’ typically find jobs by looking through ads in a trade newspaper, or on online job boards. We spot something we like, email in our CV/resume with a covering note, and cross our fingers. If we’re lucky, we might get a reply asking us to go for an interview, and if we’re even luckier, we might land a second interview, or even the job itself.
This is a recruitment model that has worked for a long time, and though it appears successful, Seth argues in his book that the process only really works when companies want to hire average people to fill average positions.
The more you think about it, the more this makes sense. The question is – what if you don’t consider yourself average, and don’t want an average job? How do you make your CV/resume stand out without writing it in Comic Sans?
The new way
The interesting thing is that the new way isn’t the new way at all. It’s actually the original way – the way things were done before the Industrial Revolution turned us all into interchangeable parts in a giant machine.
Consider a stone mason living in Georgian England. Back in the eighteenth century, he wouldn’t have written out a CV, posted it to the Lord of the Manor, and hoped to get an interview. Instead, he would have knocked on the door of the manor house, introduced himself, handed over a couple of references, pointed out some work he had noticed needed doing on the building, and invited the squire to see his other work at the hall across the valley.
If he was really smart, he would have brought his tools (the finest he could afford), and shown them off with pride – but also in the hope that he might get hired on the spot.
Can these methods work today?
- Build up recommendations on LinkedIn
- Work on personal projects to show prospective employers
- Start a blog about your work
I can’t see the CV/resume becoming totally redundant any time soon. It’s just too entrenched in the jobseeking process, especially for people who rely on recruiters to connect them with big companies looking to hire.
However, thanks to the Internet, that might change soon.
If I ever decide to look for a permanent job, one of the first things I will do is take time to find the right company for me, and part of that search will involve an attempt to approach without a CV.
